Comment on Terraform Industries actually created synthetic methane from sunlight, water, and air
photon_echo@slrpnk.net 2 days agoThis has the same problem as CO2 capture technologies, that is the relatively low CO2 concentration in the air.
You’re correct that the CO2 concentration in atmospheric air is low: 0.04%. Consider the following:
- Each molecule of C02 has a single carbon atom.
- Each molecule of methane also has a single carbon atom.
- So we could say that atmospheric air has 0.04% of methane production capacity.
I would agree with you this would be a waste of time if the goal was CO2 sequestration, but it isn’t. The goal is to use otherwise 100% wasted electricity to produce something useful that can be stored long term that there is a market for, in this case methane.
The only way to make this even remotely feasible
What is your definition of “feasible” here? Economically compared to fossil based methane? Volume of production?
… are end of pipe solutions where you directly capture the exhaust of a fossile fuel combustion process. But that in turn is at best a temporary band aid.
The company agrees with you. They called out that being able to direct capture pure CO2 from an industrial application would be ideal, but as they also concluded, thats not where the excess electricity is that is really the primary economic driver of this technique.
poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Economically feasible compared to other option what to use the excess electricity for, even when you factor in remote location issues.
photon_echo@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
What are the other options you see for the excess electricity that would be more feasible than this methane approach?
poVoq@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
Pretty much anything one can think off because this methane production from normal air is so incredibly inefficient.
The most obvious alternative would be to use the abundant nitrogen from the air and produce ammonia with it, which is both an energy storage and an important precursor for artificial fertilizer production.
photon_echo@slrpnk.net 2 days ago
What it looks like this company is building would be partially compatible with that approach.
For the Haber-Bosch process needs input H2 (plus the atmospheric Nitrogen). 33% of what this company is building is an electrolyser. Further, the Sabatier reactor they’re using (another 33% of their process) could possibly be swapped out for a Haber-Bosch reactor.
I don’t know enough about the environmental conditions needed for handling ammonia vs methane to understand if there are any “gotchas” to creating ammonia in situ.